Court of Appeal Orders New Parole Hearing for Man Once Sentenced
to Death in ‘Barbecue Murders’

By a MetNews
Staff Writer

The First District
Court of Appeal has ordered a new parole hearing within 60 days for a Marin
County man who was originally sentenced to death for murdering his girlfriend’s
parents in 1975.

The Board of
Parole Hearings’ 2012 decision finding Charles Riley unsuitable for parole is
legally flawed, Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline wrote Thursday for Div. Two,
because the evidence before the board did not support its findings that Riley
was likely to endanger society if released.

Riley was 20
years old when he and his 16-year-old girlfriend, Marlene Olive, planned and
carried out the murder of her parents, James and Naomi Olive, who had objected
to their relationship, according to testimony.

Riley has
admitted that he hit Naomi Olive in her head with a hammer while she was asleep
in the family home in the Terra Linda section of San Rafael, shot James Oive in
the back, and, with his girlfriend, burned the couple’s bodies in a fire pit.
Reporters at the time dubbed the crimes the “Barbecue Murders” and they became
the subject of a 1982 book, “Bad Blood: A Family Murder in Marin County” by
Richard Levine.

Riley’s death
sentence was overturned after the state Supreme Court ruled California’s former
death penalty law unconstitutional in 1976, and he was resentenced to life in
prison with the possibility of parole, the maximum sentence possible. Marlene
Olive served a short term in a juvenile facility but has been convicted of
numerous crimes such as theft and forgery as an adult.

In interviews
with prison staff and parole officials, Riley described himself as a shy,
overweight, drug-using teenager who had never had a girlfriend until he met
Marlene Olive, a dominant personality who hated her parents and wanted them
dead. Now 59, he has taken part in drug therapy and vocational training, has
earned a college degree in prison and has been assessed by psychologists since
the early 1990s as a low risk for violence.

He also became
active in the prison Jewish community, attending services and participating in
a self-help program. His rabbi said he described him as “polite, courteous and
willing to help others…an upright example for other inmates to emulate.”

He has been
denied parole more than a dozen times. The board acknowledged his remorse and
strong record while incarcerated but said he might relapse if released because
he lacked insight into the anger behind his crimes and might relapse into drug
use.

Kline, however,
in his opinion for the Court of Appeal, said the murders were a “one-time
occurrence” by someone who has committed no other acts of violence before or
since.

The presiding
justice acknowledged that Riley’s substance abuse—one article about him said he
used and distributed drugs as way of fitting in with his peers, who used to
tease him about his weight, saying he had a charge account at the local
Jack-in-the-Box—was a serious issue.

“But given
petitioner’s extremely long period of abstinence, and determination to continue
with [Narcotics Anonymous] and seek help from his network of support in the
event he was drawn to consider using drugs or alcohol, it is difficult to
imagine what more he could have done to address this concern,” Kline wrote.

Kline also cited
a Stanford study that found paroled life-term prisoners are far less likely to
commit new crimes than others released from prison.